


under white lights

by Care



Category: Doctor Who RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-09
Updated: 2013-06-09
Packaged: 2017-12-14 11:31:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/836417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Care/pseuds/Care
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The year Karen turns 28, everyone in her life gets married.</p>
            </blockquote>





	under white lights

**Author's Note:**

> Pretending-to-be-married cliche!fic. [Originally posted to Tumblr in 2012](http://maladyofthequotidian.tumblr.com/post/31966101515/oh-man-i-am-such-a-sucker-for-cliche-fics-ummm)

The year Karen turns 28, everyone in her life gets married. Well, almost everyone. Her Facebook feed is cluttered with photos of people swanning about in wedding attire, and she’s been to so many receptions she’s lost count. She notices a few things about this: she can wear the same dress five times and no one will notice; the best time to leave is right after the cake (you can swipe a piece, say your congratulations, and beg out to beat the traffic); it’s depressing.

She’s just kind of always thought that she’d be further along by now, relationship-wise. And maybe sometimes it’s the job, bustling about from one project to another, but she can’t blame it on that, not really. She could make it work if she really wanted it to. It’s not that she wants to get married right now either; it’s just that sitting with a flute of champagne and watching the happy couple sway to their first dance makes her wish that someone would look at her like that. Like she’s the only thing even worth mentioning in the whole world.

Maybe that’s why she temporarily loses her mind when she receives Lucy’s invite. Lucy. Bloody Lucy. The same girl who used to mercilessly make fun of Karen’s ginger hair and awkward limbs and the way she was always a foot taller than all the other kids in their class. Lucy was dark-haired and petite and had a perfect smile. She was basically Satan.

Of course Karen’s going to that wedding. She hasn’t seen Lucy in years, not since she left Inverness for Edinburgh, and they’re not friends on Facebook. Karen’s not even sure why she’s getting an invitation (probably more to do with Lucy’s mum than Karen). But Karen is just so curious about what’s happened to her. If it feels petty, Karen thinks, it’s because it is. But she’s okay with the level of pettiness.

She RSVPs for herself and clears her obligations for that weekend so she can go to Scotland.

_so glad you’re coming to the wedding, karen,_ Lucy writes back a day later, _are you just coming by yourself? you single girls are so lucky. :)_

Fucking Lucy.

Matt’s oddly subdued about the whole affair when Karen blurts it out over the phone later that night, explaining the whole story, leading up to asking him to go with her to the wedding. She understands he’s busy, of course he’s busy and he doesn’t have to come with her, she gets it, work whatever, but it would mean a lot to her and they could stay at her parents’ house and it wouldn’t be the wedding the whole time — maybe they could go for a drive on Sunday or something?

“Of course I’ll go,” Matt says when she lapses into silence, needing to take a breath. “I’d love to.”

Thank god for him.

They fly up on Friday and spend the evening watching telly in pajamas and socks with Karen’s parents. Her mum and dad go to bed hours before she and Matt do. They stay up, talking over the reruns they’re watching, laughing in the glow of the television. She says goodnight to him in the doorway of her old bedroom, the walls still plastered with Spice Girls posters. She feels oddly self-conscious about the silly bedspread and the books on her shelf, like he could look around the place and see through it immediately. Instead he smiles and kisses her on the cheek and says he’ll see her in the morning.

She puts on the dress she’s wearing in the bathroom, emerging when she’s finished putting on her lip gloss. Matt’s knotting his tie by the side of her small bed and his fingers slip when he sees her, his eyes going wide.

“That bad, huh?” she laughs, feeling something settle hot and strange in the pit of her stomach.

His eyes flick up to hers and she watches his throat move as he swallows. His grin isn’t quite real. “Yeah.”

She crosses the room and fixes his tie for him, smoothing a palm across the silk. “You look alright too,” and she tries to ignore the sudden frenzied drumming of her heart.

The service is standard. Pretty and nice and just a bit on the side of boring. Lucy looks disappointingly beautiful in her dress, absolutely radiant when she says her vows, but Karen doesn’t even notice then because Matt’s hand is suddenly pressed against her thigh and she can feel the heat of his skin seeping in through the thin fabric of her dress.

“How lovely to see you again, Karen!” Lucy says, all aglow at the reception. “Oh, who’s your friend?”

And Karen is not sure what makes her do it — she’s really not — a moment of weakness perhaps? But the next thing she knows is that words are coming out of her mouth and they sound like this: “Matt’s my husband, actually.”

She can feel him start next to her, but his recovery is smooth, and a second later his hand is placed in the small of her back and he’s reaching out the other to shake Lucy’s. “Hi, yeah, it’s very nice to meet you. Beautiful ceremony. Congratulations.”

Lucy shakes it dubiously. “I didn’t know you were…married.”

“Small wedding,” Matt says with a smile and a bit of a shrug. “We didn’t want it to get leaked to the press. You know how it is. We just want to our private lives to be private.”

Karen nods. “Yeah, erm, really it was just our families. A handful of close friends.”

Lucy looks from her to Matt and then back again. “Oh. Uh. Well. How long have you guys been married then?”

“Just a few months,” Matt says again, barreling ahead of Karen. It sounds like he’s starting warm to the subject. The palm of his hand curves slightly against her and she shivers.

“Well, uh, congratulations to you too then,” Lucy says, still sounding rather stilted.

They exchange a few more pleasantries before Lucy’s rushed away to greet a distant relation. Matt takes Karen’s hand, twining their fingers together, and leads her back to their table.

“Sorry,” she mumbles once they’re alone.

“Don’t you mean sorry, _dear_?” Matt says, laughing. “It’s alright. I just wish you had warned me first!”

“I didn’t know — it just came out of my mouth!”

And he kisses her.

It takes her by surprise, his lips against hers, and the way his hand comes up to cup her cheek. She’s immediately breathless, drowning in the way he feels, and the smell of his aftershave, the fabric of his suit beneath her fingers. When he pulls away, she has to blink the tent back into focus.

“Lucy was looking. Sorry,” he whispers, but she just nods, letting him curl a tendril of her hair around his index finger.

They spend the rest of the reception trying to convince the people around them that they really are married. He drapes his arm around the back of her chair, rubs the arches of her feet when she kicks off her heels after dancing, and gives her his suit jacket when she gets cold. Karen forgets to leave after the cake like she usually does, because Matt’s smile is soft in the lantern light. They dance the last dance together, her barefoot, her head resting on his shoulder, the two of them swaying in time to the music. She touches his chin and he looks down at her and she suddenly sees it, the way he’s looking at her. Like she’s the only thing even worth mentioning in the whole world.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she whispers, holding him close.

“Because you’re Kaz,” he says, like it’s the simplest question he’s ever answered.

It’s the right answer, Karen thinks, as she tilts her face up to meet his mouth with her own.

“And what was that for?” he murmurs into her hair.

“I just want to kiss my husband, that’s all,” she tells him, and he laughs, soft and delighted, and twirls her across the floor.


End file.
